Time to move on

It’s been a real time of change in the business this week. In some cases it’s been quite hard to deal with, but upon reflection I think it’s all been for the best and I’m sure we now have a much stronger outlook, with a committed and capable team.

Firstly I had to deal with the change of our webdesigner from accsys, to our new supplier (& shareholder) Fluid Creativity. After many emails back and forth, I think we have resolved the issue now, and hopefully by the time you read this, Fluid will have control of the site on their servers. We, (Lee, Ross & I), are trying to draw up a hitlist of planned work, once they’ve had chance to review the site’s files and coding.

There are still a few things I want sorting before Tuesday’s preview evening (yes, that’s tomorrow!), so that we can show the site in the best light at that stage.

The timing of these preview evenings now work perfectly for us, because we can use them as focus groups and see what other changes users would like to see. Again, there are certain other things that need changing before we send the media packs out to the journalists for review, so we’re going to have to consider our workplan very carefully.

In the end it was obvious that accsys didn’t have the necessary setup for our requirements, and I think this is a positive move, although probably long overdue. Unfortunately it’s going to be more stressful now, due to the timing of this handover, but it wasn’t really something that could’ve been done before. Negotiations, meetings, reviewing legal documents, more meetings etc all take time, and it’s not surprising that, although Fluid and etk first starting discussing the possibility of this relationship in mid November, it’s taken two months for it to actually happen. Of course, the break at Christmas, which inevitably probably loses businesses about three weeks of effective working time, hasn’t helped with that timescale.

The second change this week has been the appointment of a new regional manager for Greater Manchester. It became obvious that our existing regional manager couldn’t provide us with the commitment we needed.

I understand that we are really asking a lot of anyone who comes on board with us, because the bulk of the work is always going to be up front (to get the regional content researched and entered), and yet the reward is always going to be longer term, as we are providing share incentives, instead of salary. Hopefully this will change when we start trading, and we’ll be able to use a more conventional method of remuneration, but at this stage it’s a big ask.

I’m also really aiming to get the team so enthusiastic about the possibilities of this business, and I want them to as excited as I am, a very big ask!

It’s therefore only suitable for certain people who have a lifestyle that can accommodate it. And it became apparent that our first choice of Regional Manager couldn’t commit to the hours we needed, especially at this crucial stage in the business when there’s an awful lot to do in a (now) short timescale. She’s now working a 40 hour week, plus has a home business herself, and has a little girl and house to look after.

It’s been quite traumatic dealing with this over recent days, and whilst we have both finally agreed to part ways on a business level, it hasn’t been without some heartache, as we have been good friends for years, and confrontation with a personal friend is not pleasant.

However, I think this is best solution for all of us. We’re out of her hair and we are one less commitment in her life, and we can find someone who has the time and energy available. Which I’m delighted to announce, we have done!

Pauline is actually someone I met whilst at ante-natal classes, and we’ve kept in touch ever since, so she has a 2 year old boy too. She helps in her husband’s business, but hasn’t a full time role, and has the time and energy to get stuck in. So, I’m going to temporarily take over the Greater Manchester role until we can get Pauline trained. But as she was so enthusiastic, she’s already received a lot of information on email to get her immersed in who we are, what we do, her role, and our future plans.

When I was training our other regional managers, I set up a pack of information, which I can just update as each new regional manager comes on board. So this was ideal because it meant I could get the information over to her quickly and quite succinctly. The power of having systems in place! It always seems a pain to set everything up at the beginning, but it always pays dividends later when it saves you reinventing the wheel every time. In our RM pack we have:

Mission statement, first year objectives & USPs
Regional structure & planned rollout programme
RM’s role & characteristics
Overview of task
Instructions for task
PR activities – successes & planned
Share subscription letter (the legal docs)
Company structure
Copy of latest team newsletter

Which brings me onto this, we are now looking for Regional Managers for our 3 planned October launches in Herts/Beds/Essex, West Midlands and North East England. So if anyone knows any potential regional managers (preferably a mum who lives in that area) please get in touch!!

I’ve also been busy preparing the media packs which we’re starting to send out in a couple of weeks, I’ve recorded an audio cd in a recording studio (quite surreal!) and I’ve been entering content as fast as possible! Luke is going to be in nursery for an extra day a week, and will also be at one or other of his grandparents for probably half a day a week aswell, so I can dedicate as much time as possible over the next few weeks to getting us over this crucial time.

By mid February things should start to calm down and we should (in theory!) just gracefully arrive at our launch. Ha! What do you reckon?

Had a comment posted to me about last week’s blog where I was lamenting about the lower than expected % uptake we got from our promotional work. It was very useful, from someone who says he is a successful website owner himself, and all his income is derived from advertising. He stated that £2,500 spend on ‘well targeted online advertising’ should reach about 100,000 people in a year, with at least 10,000 click throughs, and that should generate 7-10% of members. This was really useful information so I thank him for posting that, and we’ll certainly be considering online advertising when we do actually launch.

However, his final comment was really interesting. He said that a website business shouldn’t be advertising offline, as ‘almost no one who is not online already will become your customer’. Is that really the case? Would appreciate to know what other’s think about this aswell.

So our preview evenings start tomorrow evening….eek, lots more opinion no doubt. Marvellous!

Kirsty